Talk:Winter of Our Discontent
A shame this didn't take. It was one of the most intelligent premises on the market for a while there, and if nothing else, it's not yet another WWII story. Also, it surely would have provided us with opportunities to write new historical figure articles and to bone up some that are anemic. The former group would have yielded Gerald Ford: both as a member of the Warren Commission, which would no doubt be convened for rather different purposes this time, and as the leader of the opposition party's caucus in the body which does presidenial impeachments. There must have been some Democrats ready to support Kennedy to the bitter end, so it's hard to imagine articles of impeachment getting through the House without Ford being involved in some horse-trading with leading anti-Kennedy Democrats. Then there's also a chance we'd get Bush the Elder and come even closer to the goal of an all-blue Presidential succession box. Past that, the sky's the limit: Dean Rusk? Robert MacNamara? Certainly. Ted Kennedy? Adlai Stevenson? Undoubtedly. Eleanor Roosevelt? Frank Sinatra? Strong possibilities. Ho Chi Minh? Ngo Dinh Diem? Bak Jeong-Hwee? David Ben-Gurion? Allen Dulles? Che Guevera? Raul Castro? Pepe San Roman? Gamal Abdel Nasser? Francois Duvalier? Meyer Lansky et al? The possibilities are endless. Turtle Fan 04:19, September 21, 2010 (UTC) :Indeed. In the course of three chapters: Gov. Connolly takes the bullet meant for JFK, JFK is convinced Sam Giancana was behind it, Allen Dulles and a couple of other historicals appointed to a Warren Commission to investigate the attempt (whether Connolly or JFK was the target this time), plus Robert Morganthau, JKF's Secretary Lincoln (blanking her first name), McGeorge Bundy, Ngo Dinh Diem, and a couple of others get a mention. TR 05:05, September 21, 2010 (UTC) ::Cool. Maybe we should do them up? I know WoOD is about a low a priority as one can get on this wiki, and with good reason. But those are people who deserve some awesome articles. Turtle Fan 20:09, September 21, 2010 (UTC) :::Maybe. We have a enough stubs out of laziness, I'm loathe to create more stubs that can never be finished by definition. Plus, the articles would be rather on the redundant side--see the JFK paragraph for an example. On the other hand, there would be some articles that would have a beginning, middle and end. Gov. Connolly would be one. William McKinley would be another (last POTUS assassinated, everyone has to look that up). We could also create a specific template that says "We don't know what happens next" to help deal with the redundancy aspect. TR 22:22, September 21, 2010 (UTC) ::::We wouldn't have to consider them stubs. They would be unsatisfyingly inconclusive, but so are articles on characters from works in progress, or on characters from finished series whose arcs were left dangling. Was Sam Carsten's nasty mole cancerous? Whatever happened to Liu Han (who looked ahead to the future in every scene and was as interested in the long run as any human character, almost as much as the Lizards)? Did Rance and Penny get sprung from prison? What did Moishe Russie do other than lose a grandson in a fatal accident circa 2020? Armstrong Grimes wanted out of the Army, did he ever get it? Which of Gerin's two sons succeeded him as king (that one's less important thanks to our all-around uninterest in writing Elabon articles). ::::We put up all the available information and leave it at that. Those aren't stubs (unless they're the special stubs we hang on articles relevant to unfinished works, and as I said that doesn't always apply). The real reason we have a bunch of stubs is that there's enough information to do a full-length article but we're too lazy to read all that and write it. And since all the available information is contained within three chapters, that would hopefully not apply. ::::A note at the end, either in the body or in a template, saying "Sorry, folks, that's all the story there is" doesn't seem redundant to me. Actually, in talking this up I've managed to convince myself, somehow, that there are good reasons for doing this going well beyond the fact that it would be fun to write these people (though McKinley also helps us fill in the presidential succession). The only argument against that I can really come up with is that it might be cruel to provide our readers with articles which would encourage them to take an interest in a story that stops off so abruptly. Turtle Fan 23:15, September 21, 2010 (UTC) :::::If we're going to do it, let's do it right and create articles for the fictionals as well as the historicals. Since its unfinished, I don't think we need the elaborate story template, but disclaimer as to how this will be unfinished in template form makes the most sense to me. TR 16:51, September 22, 2010 (UTC) ::::::Maybe we should say "discontinued" instead of "unfinished?" Turtle Fan 20:15, September 22, 2010 (UTC) Being published So, on a whim, I followed the link and it appears that Zabel finished this on his own and will publish it via kindle. HT's name don't seem to be on the credits, and it no longer appears to be called "Winter of Our Discontent". Think I'll buzz over to Videssos. TR 17:09, September 1, 2011 (UTC) :Awesome! Turtle Fan 02:48, September 2, 2011 (UTC) So per Steven Silver: "HT is no longer involved. If it has been finished, it should only have Bryce Zabel's name on it." So I guess we need to do away with a couple of articles. Damn. TR 22:24, September 1, 2011 (UTC) :Not sure we have to do that. Maybe all we have to do is to add the information that Zabel eventually completed the project on his own and published it independently of HT. The point would be documenting HT's work, even failed attempts, and then giving credit to those who completed it. ML4E 22:46, September 1, 2011 (UTC) ::True, the main article on the story itself will stay. But given that HT has completely disassociated himself, I don't see how we can justify the articles on, e.g, John Connally, which was created exclusively on the strength of what HT and ZB had published jointly way back in 2007. TR 01:47, September 2, 2011 (UTC) :::Given that HT had his name on the first three chapters at one point, I think we're justified in keeping McKinley and Connolly around. Maybe a note saying "HT never finished this story. It was eventually completed by BZ." A false start that went nowhere should still be of interest to HT readers, just as Willis McNelly's Dune Encyclopedia is still of interest to fans despite the fact that Herbert's son hates it and has completely dissociated the Herbert estate from it. Turtle Fan 02:48, September 2, 2011 (UTC) ::::Despite my misgivings, I shall agree with what appears to be the consensus. I've already edited the few articles we had on the subject to tone down the in-universe aspects. TR 16:02, September 2, 2011 (UTC) Zabel's Finished Novel I followed TR's link to Turtledove's twitter feed about The Gladiator POD and checked out the other postings. One post was a re-tweet by HT about Zabel's novel Surrounded by Enemies: A Breakpoint Novel which indicated it had won the Sidewise Award. Apparently true, based on an Amazon book listing for the paperback edition. The Award website confirms it won for long form in 2013. I just include this here for your interest (if any). ML4E (talk) 19:33, June 29, 2017 (UTC) :I started it, found it pretty silly, and gave up before too long. Disappointing. Turtle Fan (talk) 20:51, June 29, 2017 (UTC)